


Off-Script

by IntoTheRiverStyx



Series: Took my Boat Down to Hotel Road [5]
Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23171509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoTheRiverStyx/pseuds/IntoTheRiverStyx
Summary: Agrivane can take a lot, but the good emerging from the wreckage? The kindness? Not so much.Takes place during the Hotel Road epilogue.
Series: Took my Boat Down to Hotel Road [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1663936
Kudos: 6





	Off-Script

Verse. Chorus. Verse. Chorus. Verse. Bridge. Chorus, fade out.

Ordinary world. Call to adventure. Refusing the call. Meeting the mentor. Crossing the threshold. Tests, allies, enemies. Approach to the innermost cave. Ordeal. Reward. The road back. Resurrection. Return with the elixir. 

Heat oven to 350 degrees and position racks in top and bottom thirds. Wash potato (or potatoes) thoroughly with a stiff brush and cold running water. Dry, then using a standard fork poke 8 to 12 deep holes all over the spud so that moisture can escape during cooking. Place in a bowl and coat lightly with oil. Sprinkle with kosher salt and place potato directly on rack in middle of oven. Place a baking sheet on the lower rack to catch any drippings. Bake 1 hour or until skin feels crisp but flesh beneath feels soft. Serve by creating a dotted line from end to end with your fork, then crack the spud open by squeezing the ends towards one another. It will pop right open. But watch out, there will be some steam. Add toppings if using.

Some things we know the formula works. Music, the hero's journey, even [ Alton Brown's recipe for a baked potato.](https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/the-baked-potato-recipe1-1908821) But what happens when the formula fails, when you have to go so far off-script even the familiar becomes alien?

What happens when everything you knew about yourself turns out to be a lie?

There was nothing that could have been done differently, in hindsight. Bedivere's (brief) death triggered Kay to fly into a rage which triggered Lancelot to break into his mind which triggered Mordred to break the laws of time itself and reclaim Excalibur from his own corpse, which wound up bringing the magics together in the exact way they needed to be. 

And as the Merlin's lifeblood seeped into the stone floor of Camelot's returned King and Queen's main winery building while magics the gods themselves had failed to defeat were banished, what were the rest of the us, those without magic or even a weapon at our disposal supposed to do but freeze and watch in horror? 

As my brothers moved on with their lives, had anchored the change in their trajectories onto another, were their rooms supposed to remain empty, the stagnant air a reminder that I had been unable to pivot like them? 

Was I selfish to want to fill the house as Lancelot and Galehaut had before the storm broke open, to banish the room silence made for the memories that clung to my consciousness to come back to life?

What good was I without others to look after, others to provide for?

What atonement could I do for both the wrongs of my first life and how useless I'd wound up being in the battle. I could take the others ignoring what happened, could understand that, even. I could overlook my brothers not really talking about the changes their lives underwent, could see how they would find more in focusing on keeping things moving forward.

What I could not take was their patience, their kindness after I broke down in the living room one evening, the lack of pressure from all sides and the weight of not knowing what we would face in battle lifted shattering my ability to ignore what was still so wrong with me.

Less so, when coupled with the idea that having another breakdown - this one in a hotel room not even open to the public yet before a wedding of two of the most integral players in Camelot's success - wasn't a bad thing.

Once upon a time the idea of Lamorak of all people keeping himself between my inner demons and the rest of the world feeling like a safe thing would have been laughable at the very best.

And yet, here I was.

Here we were.


End file.
